Currently, when data are delivered to a data processing system via a network they typically arrive in protocol data units, also known as segments, consisting of a header of metadata combined with a block of application data payload. To process a segment of network data, the whole segment is delivered from the network so that the whole segment can be validated before passing it to the application or higher layers in a network stack. No processing will be performed by the application until the segment has been validated. As such, processing of segments is serialised in that each stage of processing is completed before the next stage can start. This can result in an unwanted delay. The last byte of a segment has to be delivered before the first byte can be processed. Network serialisation and on-the-wire speeds mean that this delay may in some scenarios be of the order of microseconds with current technology compared to normal data access speeds.